Latah Valley

I know that I’m stating the obvious when I say that breathing is a prerequisite to running.   It’s also a prerequisite to walking and to crawling.   Especially on a day like today, in a place like Spokane.    But, at this hour when many men, women and children are still pounding the pavement with their feet, when many still find themselves on the side of the road, massaging a cramping muscle, or untwisting a twisted ankle, we need to point out the significant place that breathing has in the exercise of faith in Christ.

 

Think about this.  Early in the book of Genesis, the Lord God takes a heap of humus, forms it into something that resembles a human creature, and then chapter two, verse seven says “he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”   What we know, from that moment on, is that God gives each person the gift of inhaling and exhaling.   And from that moment on, an infinitesimal number of breathing opportunities are open to us.   There’s the first time mother, going into labor.   There’s the hyperventilating fiancé as he’s preparing to pop the question.   There’s the sigh of a child as her breath fogs up the car window.   There’s the miraculous recovery in the ICU when the patient can breathe off the ventilator.   And, finally, there’s that close encounter at church when the well-meaning parishioner sprays you with a cloud of chronic halitosis. 

 

“Receive the Holy Spirit,” says Jesus in John 20:22.   Receive.   Don’t try to run.  Not yet.  Don’t try to walk in your own power.  Receive.

And breathe. 

 

In Philip Yancey’s book, Why Church?, he tells about worshipping with a peculiar man, named Adolphus:

• Adolphus once thanked God for creating Whitney Houston and her magnificent body.

 

Breathe.

 

• Adolphus once called down judgment on all the white people in church who caused the mayor of Chicago such stress that he had a heart attack.

 

Breathe.

 

• Adolphus prayed for the pastor’s house to be burned to the ground.

 

Breathe.

 

• Adolphus boasted about his ability to play the guitar, and when the Music Leader allowed him to stand up front with the band without plugging his instrument into the speaker system Adolphus gyrated like Joe ###### across the platform as folks came forward to receive communion.  (P. 34—36).

 

Breathe. 

 

“The church did not give up on Adolphus,” writes Yancey.  “It gave him a second chance, and a third and a fourth.   And what we need to underscore about those multiple chances is that they came at close range.   Those chances came as men, women and children stood in such intimate proximity that they could literally smell what Adolphus had for breakfast, or didn’t have for breakfast.  

 

“The true missionary dialogue,” explains theologian Lesslie Newbigin,

“…is not initiated by the Church.  In a secondary sense it is initiated by the outsider who is drawn to ask:  What is the secret of this new reality, this life of praise, of justice and of peace?  In the primary sense, however, it is initiated by the presence of the Spirit…” (The Gospel In A Pluralist Society, p. 134). 

So breathe.   If you’re determined to live out a true relationship with Jesus, who is the risen Christ, you and I have to breathe in the Holy Spirit.   And the Holy Spirit, among other activities, will inspire us to do the following:

 “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  

 

Now, I want to go through this remark very carefully because the price that we pay for misinterpreting or misrepresenting the words of Jesus here is extremely high.  

 

First, let’s review a similar statement that Jesus makes during his earthly ministry in Matthew 16:19:

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

 

You see, in both situations, Jesus seemingly wants to share or to bequeath his authority.   Followers of Jesus have authoritative power.   But clearly it’s not the kind of political power that can force people to think what we think or to behave as we behave.   Our power in Christ is declarative and always biased toward grace.   Every once in a while we will be in a position to declare, Hey, you know what?  We are forgiven!   I remember a young woman at Princeton Seminary.   She felt out of place because she smoked cigarettes, used street slang and lost her virginity when she was very young.   So, we’re talking into the night and she says, “I just don’t feel like I have a place.”   And I took a deep breath and replied, “You have a place in the kingdom of God.”  

Of course, what’s scary about this kind of authority is that by the power of the Spirit, we also may “retain sins.”    Pete Scazzero, in his book on the Emotionally Healthy Church describes a troubled man who approaches his friend at the apex of a high bridge.   The man hands his friend one end of a rope and proceeds to tie the other end around his waist.   After tightening the knot, he takes a running leap off the bridge and leaves his friend holding him by the end of the rope.   The troubled man is dangling above this huge chasm and he shouts up to his friend, “You’re responsible!  Whatever you do, don’t let go!”   The friend, of course, feels responsible, but also kind of trapped and manipulated.   He explains to him that he will hold on and provide a counterbalance as the man begins to climb up the rope.    He must take responsibility. 

 

Now, the intention of this fable is to suggest that the authority we have to “retain sins” resembles the counterbalance provided by that friend on the bridge.   You and I are not in a position to call people out and to publicly humiliate them for their sins.   But we do have authority in Christ to declare, Hey, you are responsible for your own words, your own actions, your own silence and your own inaction.  You are responsible and you bear mutual responsibility for the relationship that we have…

 

And, you see, close encounters like this are contagious.   Jesus actually intends us to breathe these words in and exhale them out. 

Amen.